ause. And, when you have
shewn in what sense you understand OCCASION, pray, in the next place,
be pleased to shew me what reason induceth you to believe there is such
an occasion of our ideas?

HYL. As to the first point: by OCCASION I mean an inactive
unthinking being, at the presence whereof God excites ideas in our minds.

PHIL. And what may be the nature of that inactive unthinking being?

HYL. I know nothing of its nature.

PHIL. Proceed then to the second point, and assign some reason why we
should allow an existence to this inactive, unthinking, unknown thing.

HYL. When we see ideas produced in our minds, after an orderly and
constant manner, it is natural to think they have some fixed and regular
occasions, at the presence of which they are excited.

PHIL. You acknowledge then God alone to be the cause of our ideas, and
that He causes them at the presence of those occasions.

HYL. That is my opinion.

PHIL. Those things which you say are present to God, without doubt He
perceives.

HYL. Certainly; otherwise they could not be to Him an occasion of acting.

PHIL. Not to insist now on your making sense of this hypothesis, or
answering all the puzzling questions and difficulties it is liable to: I
only ask whether the order and regularity observable in the series of our
ideas, or the course of nature, be not sufficiently accounted for by the
wisdom and power of God; and whether it doth not derogate from those
attributes, to suppose He is influenced, directed, or put in mind, when
and what He is to act, by an unthinking substance? And, lastly, whether,
in case I granted all you contend for, it would make anything to your
purpose; it not being easy to conceive how the external or absolute
existence of an unthinking substance, distinct from its being perceived,
can be inferred from my allowing that there are certain things perceived
by the mind of God, which are to Him the occasion of producing ideas in
us?

HYL. I am perfectly at a loss what to think, this notion of OCCASION
seeming now altogether as groundless as the rest.

PHIL. Do you not at length perceive that in all these different
acceptations of MATTER, you have been only supposing you know not what,
for no manner of reason, and to no kind of use?

HYL. I freely own myself less fond of my notions since they have been
so accurately examined. But still, methinks, I have some confused
perception that there is such a thing as MATTER.